Grayscale’s Pulido Says Tokenized Assets Need Rights, Valuations and Credit Quality

Tokenized assets will need clear legal rights and reliable valuations, while investors also assess underlying credit quality, said Sebastian Pulido, managing director and head of onchain asset management at Grayscale Investments.

Pulido said tokenization’s potential differs across asset classes. Putting an illiquid asset on a blockchain does not automatically make it liquid, particularly in lending markets, he said.

He described tokenized equities and perpetual futures as complementary ways to get the same market exposure. Tokenized shares avoid the funding payments associated with perpetual futures, a feature that may suit longer-term holders. Shares are also being used as collateral for loans and perpetual-futures positions.

Pulido identified several frictions for tokenized markets. Tokens may trade around the clock even when the underlying markets have fixed hours. Redemption schedules can differ, and liquidity may be spread across multiple chains and venues. He said institutions are more comfortable holding tokenized funds than using them in decentralized finance (DeFi), but expects that comfort to grow as they become more familiar with protocols and how assets move.

A Sept. 24 update from the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) offers a U.S. example of the legal-rights issue. The agency clarified that futures commission merchants and derivatives clearing organizations may invest customer funds in eligible tokenized forms of permitted assets when the tokens provide the same or functionally equivalent legal and economic rights. Other eligibility requirements also apply, as described in the CFTC’s customer-funds guidance.

Looking toward 2040, Pulido expects more assets to be issued directly onchain. He also sees brokerage wrappers providing another way to hold them, while credit monitoring could rely on more transparent data than periodic reports.